


Till The Judgement That Yourself Arise

by beng



Series: Fires in the Night [6]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Author hasn't slept, Buy your immortal a coffee, Central Europe, Discovery of the Americas, F/M, Hussite Wars, Mentions of Death, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 22:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: The world had changed a lot in the past couple of ages. This — the Ninth Age, was it? — with its melting ice and deadly hurricanes, made her think the time for Dagor Dagorath, the final battle between the Valar and the fallen demons of the Void, must surely come in just another century or so.Tauriel sometimes wondered what Fili would have to say to that.(Does NOT contain spoilers for "Courage", so have a look. Fili is and always has been mortal, and nothing has changed that)





	Till The Judgement That Yourself Arise

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to set a thing in Prague for _years_, so when inspiration struck, I ran with it.  
And I kid you not, the actual Iron Hills (Železné Hory) are exactly where I needed them according to this legend.  
The title is from Shakespeare's Sonnet #55.

The world had changed in the past couple of ages. This — the Ninth Age, was it? — with its melting ice and deadly hurricanes, poisoned earth and water, species of animals dying in droves, made her think that Dagor Dagorath, the final battle between the Valar and the fallen demons of the Void, was surely a matter of just another century or so.

Perhaps there wouldn’t even be any battle, the men were doing a fine job unmaking Arda all on their own. 

Tauriel wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She wasn’t sure she could feel much of anything anymore, because the ten or twelve thousand years she’d walked under the sun did tend to put things in perspective.

She’d witnessed entire mountain ranges crumble to dust, granite and basalt carried away on the wind. Rivers had changed their course beyond recognition. Some of the old Misty Mountains and the Iron Hills remained, their once proud peaks reduced to gentle rolling hills and forests. Mirkwood had been more successful at braving the time, pockets of it still surviving as the Český Les and Bavarian Forest on the German-Czech border.

Once the entire world was worn down to its doom… Perhaps things would finally restart for Tauriel too.

But until then? Feelings? Mostly, she was just lowkey pissed at littering tourists.

She worked in a wildlife park near Karlovy Vari, but often she walked her old paths too, with a backpack containing protein bars and some canned food. People nowadays preferred to kill animals in slaughterhouses, and would not understand her way with an honest bow and arrow.

Tauriel sometimes wondered what Fili would have to say to that.

Presently, she just sighed, her bare toes curled in the soft moss along the trail of River Doubrava, up in the ancient Iron Hills. She haunted these areas less often, but an old longing had pulled her here this time.

Longing… Well, there was nothing to do but wait and see how it all ends. She bent, picked up a plastic bottle caught under the picnic table nearby, shoved it in her bag with the other trash she’d collected so far, and walked on towards the town of Kutná Hora.

> _It is 1419, and a vicious war is ravaging his country, and he’s just a simple blacksmith who barely knows how to write his name, and he hates this whole mess and despairs. But when Jan Žižka calls, he takes his sparse belongings and follows him to Tábor, because there may be no honour in war, but there is none in idly watching his land be robbed either._
> 
> _Two years later, Radoslav is a skilled warrior who knows his way around daggers, bows and swords. His name will not be forgotten by those he helped. But his whole life, why does he feel he is just a step behind someone? He's always looking for he doesn’t know what or whom, searching the dappled shadows of a forest, straining his ears for a silver laughter at night, when all he can hear is the muffled snores of his company sleeping in a bed of moss, and the gurgling merry sound of Doubrava as it runs over rocks._
> 
> _It is 1421 right before Christmas, when__ in a sudden attack,_ _the Hussites beat Emperor Sigismund’s forces at __Kutná Hora__, but Radoslav dies in the battle._

She was so tired of walking, walking, walking forever. She sometimes felt like in that fairytale where you were supposed to wear down a pair of steel shoes chasing the horizon before you could find what you were looking for. If only she knew what that was or how to reach it. She couldn’t get to the end of the world and to a new beginning simply by walking, could she?

Sitting down in a street cafe in Vienna, she stretched out her tired legs and asked for black coffee, no sugar. The traditional, rich Sacher cake that she ordered with it was one of her small guilty pleasures, because what was the point not to, when you’re immortal and have time in spades.

> _It is 1789, and he thinks he must have seen __this woman in his__ dreams. __Or, p__erhaps she had been a traveler taking shelter at Lilienfeld for the night. He can’t remember her face, just the shade of her hair, __burnished copper __shining like a beacon in the night. Perhaps he’s made her up, because, _sanguis Christi_, the work in the __monastery__ scriptorium is tedious beyond reason._
> 
> _The news of the impending dissolution of the abbey takes them all by surprise, and together with a few others Dominic finds himself in Vienna, delivering some silver chalices that will now be housed in St.Stephen's Cathedral. The archbishop dismisses them with a careless wave, and it is the majordomo who makes sure the young monks have some coins for the return trip._
> 
> _It is _ _even _ _a bit more than they need, and something pulls Dominic through the narrow, cobbled streets, a gut instinct he just can't let go. His Cistercian brothers laugh when they realise Dominic has brought them to a coffee house, but it looks respectable enough, and there is nice music coming from the inside, and, fuck it all, don’t they all deserve a little treat after the shitty weeks they’ve had? If nothing else, it will be a small adventure they will remember him by when they're eventually sent off to different monasteries in all four corners of the Holy Roman Empire._
> 
> _It is 1789, when _ _they’re_ _ robbed on their way back to Lilienfeld_ _, and Dominic is_ _ killed for a handful of small coins._

Five centuries ago, men discovered an entire new continent in the West. Of course, Tauriel had wanted to know more, and that was how she ended up in Seville.

The port on the Guadalquivir was a hive of activity, crates and sacks, and barrels of fish blocking her way, sun-kissed sailors with sweaty shirts and loud voices not hesitating to tell her what they thought of her, a little _puta_ _pelirroja_ with nothing better to do than get under their feet.

Had they just called her a whore? Tauriel didn’t remember when she'd last laughed so hard. Imagine what Fili would say! Oh, he'd wipe the docks with these men.

And then, among the gypsies and poor fishermen in dimly lit _tabernas_ of Triana, she listened to their tales of America. She even went down the Guadalquivir, and for the first time in her life saw the Sea.

She plopped down on a sandy dune amid the reeds and marshes, arms wrapped around her knees under her long skirt covered with road dust and fish oil, and tried to hear the ancient music of the Ainur. She even removed her headdress, such a useful accessory for hiding her pointy ears.

But the Atlantic just crashed and roared, white foam and seaweeds regurgitated on the shore, where gulls and other birds had their pickings of small sea creatures trapped in shallow puddles below the tide line. Stuck, like her.

Tauriel undid her hair and let it flow with the wind as she slowly walked on the beach.

There was no music. There was no ship to take her on the Lost Road to Aman.

Well. She wasn’t exactly surprised.

America was not Valinor, of course not, but it was something exciting and new, and many years passed before Tauriel left the shores of Andalusia and wandered back to her streams and green forests of Bohemia.

> _It is 1495, and he tries to run, just for an hour, just down _ _to_ _ Tachau, to hear more of the strange news from beyond the seas, but his two little sisters weigh down on his hands, whine, cry, they’re bored, and they’re hungry, and they want to know when mummy is coming back home. Milan distracts them _ _as_ _ best he can, finds them apples and tells them some fairytales._
> 
> _In the evening_ _,_ _ when he has wrestled the two spitfires into bed, he leans in the doorway and waits for his father, who’s probably _ _late in the village with his pipe and his songs that nobody’s going to pay him for_ _. But Milan does not dare leave the girls. He just steps out of the house, slumps heavily down on the bench by the window and breathes a long sigh. Mummy is not coming home. Mummy died of fever _ _five days ago_ _, and his father is useless, and his sisters will need at least some kind of dowry if they’re not to become beggars on the streets. He doesn't have the time to go chasing after will-o'-the-wisps._
> 
> _Milan stares up at the blinking stars and realises he has missed his chance. A kindred _ _soul_ _ has left these lands, and it’s going to be a hard life filled with little hope or joy. But he'll do everything in his power to make sure his little sisters grow up and find some happiness in family life, even if he won't. If, in the end, they can wreathe his name with blessings, it will be enough for him._

Fed up with the traffic jam on her way to an old jeweller she knew in the oldtown of Prague, she got off the bus and decided to walk instead. The air had that brittle, golden clarity that belonged to early October mornings, and golden, wet birch leaves covered the stone pavement beneath her feet. 

She could hear it nowadays, the stone spirit of the ancient Rhovanion. On Charles Bridge, she brushed her hand over the granite pedestals of the statues of the kings and saints as she passed, the Mountain’s voice a mere whisper in the city’s stone. She spoke to her louder in abandoned salt mines, in old mining tunnels. The small pouch of uncut garnets in Tauriel’s coat pocket was proof of how Erebor still found ways to care for her adopted woodland daughter.

Tauriel stopped for a moment on the bridge, watching as the medieval streets filled up with tourists, chattering excitedly, waving around their selfie sticks and takeaway coffee cups. Cars crowded impatiently on the Vltava riverside, while a tram passed through the traffic half-empty. 

She sighed, and then walked on.

It is 2019, and he _runs_. He needs to be somewhere, he doesn't know where, but it’s important, and he must not miss it. His grandfather has forgotten the keys of his workshop and is waiting for Filip to bring them to him. He can’t think of breakfast, he needs to be _out_, so yeah, fine, he’ll deliver those keys, and then, fuck, then he doesn't know.

The city is waking, cars honking on the streets. Traffic lights, tourists, a half-empty tram and a pedestrian crossing. With a hot knot in his chest, he dives into the oldtown, where the past breathes down his neck, forever close and brutal, and as real as the wet birch leaves that cling to the pavement. The stone heart of the city seems to be beating in time with his.

The shop is closed, and Tauriel frowns. She doesn’t have a phone, but the old jeweller has _always_ been there the first thing in the morning. She absent-mindedly jostles the pouch of garnets in her pocket and wonders if she’s _really_ sure it was a year ago that she met him last. After all the permutations of the human condition that she’s witnessed across the ages, she does sometimes doubt her memory. And humans are so mortal.

She finds a free table in a nearby street cafe, and decides to wait for a while.

In her age, a wonky memory could probably be expected. She supposes she’s more of a spirit by now than a woodland elf, though people can still see and talk to her alright, ask annoying questions about her signature green headband, remind her to pay the rent and fill in vacation forms before going off wandering the hills and cities. She smiles crookedly, thinking of all the paperwork that simply being alive involves nowadays.

Tauriel wonders what would...

“Hello!”

Her gaze travels up a slightly crumpled white-blue shirt, glides along a clean-shaven jawline and gets snagged in short, tousled hair the colour of birch leaves in autumn. He's breathless, like he's been running up a hill, like he's been running for centuries.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help but feel like we've met before.” He looks down at her with that lopsided, dimpled grin of his, and Tauriel realises no time in the world could erase Fili from her memory.

"I think we have. Tauriel. My name is Tauriel," she finally manages.

“Filip.” He sits down, and she cannot take her eyes off of his. She vaguely realises there’s a sachet of garnets lying on the table, a heavy keyring, a ringing phone.

She finds her hands in his, calloused thumbs running reverently over her knuckles.

"Where do we start remembering?" he softly asks.

Her voice breaks over the tightness in her throat.

“Let’s not remember. Let’s start from the beginning. Buy a girl a coffee?”

The human smiles. And gets her a chocolate cake too.


End file.
